Greedy Goblin

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

No means no!

I get such e-mails every week. Usually they are bots under some female name, wanting link exchange or embed ads to my site. I usually delete them without consideration. If they seem to be a human-written letter from someone I've heard of, I decline. I never see them again for good. But this person bugged me with offers several times:[continuing the letter on the picture] Here’s how you could sell the guide and not put up a single ad: Create a post about gold guides and how you hate them. Give examples of guides and then at the very end start talking about my gold guide and use my blog as credibility for the guide. Perhaps you can mention that this guide is the only one you will even consider tolerating. Leave a link to the 20kleveling.com site with your clickbank hoplink encrypted inside of it.

I can guarantee that if you did this you would make $500-$1000 the first day it was posted. You’d maintain your ‘street credibility’ and at the same time make some great money. What’s more that post will continue making you money for as long as it exists because it will always have traffic hitting it and users clicking on the link. Just think about it, if you need help setting up the clickbank id and the link let me know.

Markco

PS: If you don’t want to do I won’t bother you any more with my sales pitches. I don’t mean to disturb you, I honestly want to open your eyes to the power of affiliate marketing online and reward you for your work on greedygoblin.blogspot.com.

I was somewhat pissed by his ridiculous claims. $1000 in one day as affiliate for selling a gold guide? Even if I'd get half of the $20 income, I'd have to sell 100 every day. I don't think that's nearly possible. I don't see why would anyone pay $20 for something he could get for free. If he already found my site, he just have to hit the "My business" link and he'll find lot of tips. On my blogroll, he can find other endless sources of tips for free. If someone is such an idiot or so lazy that he can't find the information or doesn't want to bother with it, he will buy gold for $20 and not guide.

On the other hand the risk is high. Most of my readers are not idiots and lot of them don't like me at all, they come here to bitterly argue and troll. They would love to catch me doing something like that. And on such catch there would my whole site go down, as they could easily claim that "he just speaks nonsense on purpose to increase traffic to his ads". So I've replied: "If I wanted to make "$500-$1000", I would just do some Saturday overtime in my job instead of risking being caught writing an advertisement post."

I thought the "Gevlon advertise Markco's guide" case is closed. Well, it was not:You completely misunderstood my email. I don’t want you to ‘risk being caught’, I want you to honestly and truthfully advertise the guide on your blog. Let’s say you put a 100x100 ad next to your subscription box. That alone would make you money, and you wouldn’t have to lift a finger as the money rolled in every single day. You wouldn’t even have to write a post! What’s more it wouldn’t upset the page balance of your site in the least (there is just white space to the right of the subscription box currently).

I have a salary that most 24 year olds won’t see till they hit 30, there’s no reason to be snide with me and brag about your day job. Not to mention the internet marketing campaigns I run that go well and beyond world of warcraft. We both write blogs for the fun of it, why not make some FREE money on the side?

You think your readers will really care about a small 100x100 ad next to your subscription box? Are you that scared? When are you going to wake up and say “Hey, I could of made another $30,000 this year if I’d put that 100x100 ad up.” If you’re so wealthy that you look at a FREE $30,000 and think it’s not worth putting up an ad in white space at the bottom of your page then I’m stunned.

Tobold was just as stubborn as you, and he made the same argument with his ‘day job being amazing.’ You both act as if your readers are going to hang you for putting up an ad. NEWS FLASH: They might complain, but they are on your site for your unique information which they can’t get anywhere else… they aren’t leaving over a small 100x100 ad!!!

Now please, don’t respond with an e-thug one liner. I’m not a child and I expect you to act like an adult. Or you could just put an ad up and make that every week for the rest of your life with no cost to your time.

I write this post here on the blog not (only) to bash him for annoying me, but also because it's a perfect collection of smart and not so smart marketing moves:

Smart: outright lying about the method. Anyone reading the first e-mail can see that he offered a shady virus-ad, and when I declined that, he claimed that he's just been "misunderstood" and he offers an upfront banner ad now. While this trick seems lame, I guarantee that it's not. Social people find it very hard to look someone's eyes and say: "you are lying!". They usually accept that "misunderstanding" happened. This way he could make a new offer (the banner), completely undoing his previous offer without revoking it. Too bad that I'm not social, and for me telling someone "you are lying" into the face is quite fun.

Smart: offering smaller costs for me. I no longer have to make virus post, I just have to place a banner. It's nearly zero work. Also there is no risk, as the readers would only complain but won't leave. While neither is true (I'm sure I'd have to change the ad time-to-time and readers would no longer believe that I mean anything I say), they are usually good way to trick the mind of socials, for the reason above. Socials find it difficult to reply "you are wrong, it's lot of work and lot of risk". They just find it hard to say "no". Goblins don't!

Smart: mentioning that he has high salary and great internet marketing campaigns. It works because such "achievements" draw respect from socials, and they find it even harder to say no to such respectable man. After all, who am I to decline such offer?! I should be feeling honored that he even thought of my humble site. News bulletin: anti-socials don't recognize authority. I don't care about your salary and campaigns. I'm not claiming that they are lies. I just say they don't matter here. Your offer is shitty, even if you are Warren Buffet himself.

Very smart: "don’t respond with an e-thug one liner. I’m not a child and I expect you to act like an adult. Or you could just put an ad up". and before "Are you that scared?" "Oh no! If I don't put the ad up, I'll be considered a scared child!" Don't laugh! It looks funny when you read it, but it does work on social people. They don't want their peers to have bad opinions about them. They want to impress them. "Do this or I'll have bad opinion about you" practically always work on them.

Not so smart: mentioning $30000. It's way too good to be true. I mean lot of people get such salary for full-time work. If putting a banner to my blog would be such a great business, he could employ several full-time people to write content for him. Making ridiculous claims backfire, even for socials.

Very dumb: mentioning Tobold. He just gave me a valuable piece of information: a name of a witness. I couldn't write this post without this error. He could just say that I made the letters up, they never happened. He could even sue me IRL for damaging his business with lies, claiming that he could make $30000 if I wouldn't make bad publicity. But thanks to his error, I know that there is someone (Tobold) who could testify that he use to send such letters (Update: he did).

So the business tip for today: No means no! If someone turns your offer down clearly, bugging him with marketing tricks doesn't work! After he made up his mind, it's hard to change it, even if he is a social. He should be tricked before he makes up his mind.

Second tip: Just because 98% of the people are socials who fall for tricks, it doesn't mean you should use the tricks indiscriminately. They don't work on goblins. They just get pissed, or see an opportunity to increase traffic by writing a debunking post (people love blood), using you as bad example and delete your link from their blog, denying you traffic.

Third tip: The letters, if we substract the tricks are: "I have to drop prices and need every living body to advertise my shit before Cataclysm makes it all obsolete, plz plz plz help me sell". That's not something that will lure me to risk my blog's credibility. If you want to find business partners, you must convince them that the business works.

Fourth tip: if information is readily available, use it. If only he typed "gold guide" into the searchbox in the top left corner of the blog, he would know that I support only one goldseller company.

PS: if anyone would think it's some kind of shady advertisement, notice, that I haven't mentioned the site. You only know which site sent me these letters because you know the WoW goldmaking blogs.

This was a bit of a surprice. I thought Marcko would be more intelligent not to propose something like that to you. Atleast not several times. Well, my opinion went drastically down and i doubt i take that guy seriously anymore.

Actually I think Gevlon is off in his analysis of the marketing strategy used. He is too biased to see that that strategy is actually aimed at a specific subset of the 'socials': the greedy, stupid social.

No matter how 'social' someone is, they will not risk their status in front of their peers unless they are motivated by greed or are just plain stupid. The currency in question is peer respect and status. A 'social' will not trade this away unless they get something they really want in return. If the guy just said 'link to my guide and I will like you' any smart 'social' would laugh in his face since they would be trading down and part of being a stereotypical 'social' is the urge to climb up the social status ladder. The guy has to offer RL cash since that is an offer of RL social currency in exchange for in-game status loss.

Even then a smart 'social' will recognize that the deal is too good to be true and turn it down rather than risk social status for a lousy deal like that.

So the 'social' this would work on has to be greedy enough to want to trade social status away for RL cash and stupid enough not to see through the deal.

Gevlon, I sometimes wonder why I like you so much. Is it only a social thing, coming from the fact that you've been hanging around my inn since spring 2008? But I don't think so. I like you because you have something quite rare these days: integrity. /Respect.

Heck from what ive seen of Gevlon i would think if he were going to try for RL$ from his blog his ads would be any thing but warcraft related...Like his bussiness of crafting leather keychains or something... a RL Auction house... I wonder if people would buy scraps of paper with letters writen on them to attach to the inside of their books with promises of giving them great powers....

level1: Advertise the guide directly (not smart enough for this target audience)level2: Bash gold guides in general, but still link to the guide and mention it in a couple positive ways (presumably not smart enough too)level3: Bash Marcko and his marketing strategies, but still mention the discounts and the existence of the guide nonetheless (smart enough?)

Just kidding. Good stuff, GevSomehow I thought Marcko is savy enough not to try to sell gold guides to audience of this blog.

It seems to me that you had to choose between two "social" behaviours : feeling friendly towards an add seller or towards your readers.I'm proud that you've chosen us !(Of course, one can expect that you haven't made your mind purely out of social concerns, but nobody knows...)

I guess that the Gevlon sitting in front of the computer is much less greedy than the green goblin running between banks, mailboxes and AH's.

I find it quite upsetting that people pay for levelling guides, but at the same time, loads of people must do it. I file it under 'things I don't understand' but I'm sure there's a load of money in it.

Gevlon, can I suggest put a link in your post to a decent free levelling guide? If people want one, no sense funnelling money into a black hole when you're not getting a cut.

As the old maxim goes, "no publicity is bad publicity". Intentional or not, this IS and advertisement for Markco's guide. It strikes me more of a negative advertising approach , possibly cooked up between the two and as such is rather clever.

However if it isnt then no-one ultimately will lose. Personally when it comes to making gold I would perfer to follow Markco's guides and hints and tips as they generally don't come with ignorant, opinionated right wing generalist bullshit that normally accompanys Gevlon's posts.

Markco is just a odd ball, so far as I can tell. I don't really understand his reader base, as his blog seems just the rants and random points of a IT worker who's found a place where people will listen to him. I just don't plain like the guy, probably because he thinks the armed forces are suckers for not being introverted sociopaths like himself.

But it does look like marko has had a taker. I read www.wowstability.com or did until this its post called "20k leveling gold guide review," it is "reviewing" the guide and it fits the sketch marko laid out on the first email. Full of keyword rich text links to the guide. Good mention of the price drop from big $X to little affordable $x. The bit about xmas coming at the end of the post so a nice touch though a little contrived.The whole post is so full of "I wish I had this while I was leveling" type phrases its hard to believe anyone could fall for this blatant marketing plug. But then, their target market is stupid enough to pay for information thats freely available.

Wow, I personally thought better of Markco... thanks for ruining my delusions of altruism (again). I would so love to believe in altruism, but c'est la vie.

Oh and to all the people commenting on Gevlon's moral high ground here: can it. He didn't do this to show us how Markco "really is", or any such nonsense. Gevlon clearly stated why he did it, and has no real reason to lie. He did this post because Markco wouldn't take no for an answer (that is to say he wouldn't piss off when Gevlon said "no, now piss off.")

First of all, if this is a scheme between Gevlon and Markco, I really applaud you both for your brilliance. If not...

The more I think of this issue, I've come to a conclusion: Gevlon has turned into the very persona that he rails against.

This is why:1) Selling your site to advertising is a fact of life in this age. Look at sites like mmo-champion, wowhead. They started off as fansites but have thrived. These people are lucky that they can make a living doing something they enjoy.

2) In several of his posts, Gevlon ridicules "ethical gem sellers", "moral sellers", etc. Now, he supposedly stands by his "ethics" on this matter. I ask this question now: What is wrong with advertising? What law states that you can't have advertising on your blogs? There is only a "social" law to this.

3) Lastly, your "morons of the week" ridicule people who make stupid purchases. The justification is that "these people are stupid and act on their own free will". The same applies to gold guides. No one is forcing these people to buy these guides.

Who knows? Selling your site to advertising is perhaps the most Goblin thing that you could've done. And spreading your message of Goblinism is what people come to this site for.

If trolls come to accuse you of "selling-out" you merely point out that you were acting as a Goblin and people are buying guides on their own free will.

Markco's early blog era was quite good. I know Gevlon hate it, but I like to farm from time to time. Markco had some good posts about this.

But when he started to write crap articles, with alarming titles like "omg omg dream shards will 'xplode next patch" , I knew his blog was not about wow anymore. But was there to milk RL money. I have no problem with that, as long as his articles would be properly documented and will show he did his homework.

I don't agree with Gevlon's view of things most of the cases. But I know and admit that his "crystallized fire" business example, was the trigger that opened my eyes to wow ah business.

Actually, I really like this guy's approach. It is a clear reflection of a perspective that is becoming more and more prevalent, which is that anything that I do which is lying or deceitful is okay, as long as it serves my purposes, and if so, then is isn't bad or wrong at all. After all, I'm just trying to accomplish my goals, right?

As a marketing scheme, I love it because it really shows what this guy thinks of his customers.

Aww, now why do I get the feeling that the real goblin in this post is actually the guy sending the mail? Of course the sales pitch was pretty bad, but it seems Gevlon's biggest problem would be to lose the respect of some of his readers.

Let's see: "He prefers others to have positive opinion about his person, even if this opinion has no effect on his life."Well, of course selling a gold guide could, as he fears in the post, lose some of his readership and possibly a respect of many. But why is the changes in subscription counter or people having positive opinion about his morals such a big thing for Gevlon? And what's more interesting, so important that he's so hesitant on capitalizing them to increase his 'gold' per hour."He believes that the bad opinion of others have serious impact on his life"Omg! If people catch me selling a gold guide I will have to close down my blog!1!. Really? Gevlon himself claimed that most people come to his blog to argue and troll anyway, so isn't it just business as usual with some trolls being about an advert?.

And in general, for someone bashing the AH campers for their awful gold per hour rates, his one reason against the advert was to increase his RL income by working more on Saturdays when he was offered increased income from the work he's doing already, ie. better income per hour spent. (Well, the numbers the mail claimed are another thing, and Gevlon correctly commented about them being ridiculously high).

So really Gevlon, ridicule that guy to your hearts content (and as he seemed to keep pestering you and reading his awful advert speech, it's all warranted), but at least base your own thoughts on something a bit more solid the next time. This post really just felt to me that you are in denial about how much those ape-subroutines are controlling you when it comes to real life.

While I do enjoy your blog, I always thought that being an anti-social was only your motto since you use the phrase so often. Now I truly believe that you are anti-social and that this blog is your sounding board = you really don't give a shit about anybody except yourself. That is one reason why I could never figure out why you even do this blog which is social in nature?

Markco is real, but he has different goals. I am sure this is one road he will not travel again.

Google: antisocial and hit the wikipedia link - seek help bro.

~ Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

First, the benefits gained from going along with Markco's scheme are unreliable. Gevlon does not, with good reason, believe the numbers Markco gives him.

Secondly, it runs counter to why Gevlon writes this blog, and he's stated it before: the reason he writes this blog is to create more people who think like goblins (thus creating a world he'd prefer to live in more]. A money-making scheme based off snookering your readers is the last thing Gevlon wants.

I remember a post a while back where you actually referred a WoW-playing relative to his site. That came after you realized that explaining the industry and all that it involves would have been way to complicated. Quite ironic.

With the addition of the JMTC boards, Marco's site surpassed this one for gold making tips long ago. Gelvon's series on showing us every profession can make money was interesting, but died suddenly after a few professions. So now we get many "social" posts , and the M & S Saturday which has just become boring and childish. I will continue to read both blogs if there is something interesting. Gevlon is a pompous long winded "goblin" and Marco is a slimy salesmsn? Oh well.. pick your poison I guess.

Quick Markco, fire back a nasty reply on your blog. It's the only way it's going to get any more hits from me. lol You come across as a real asshole, I'm not going to be giving your site any undeserved traffic.

Do you really think threats to sue him will work? He is not a US citizen. He does not live in the US. Unless you would like to fly to Hungary to file the law suit I doubt would it would have any impact.

You would probably have a much greater success by apologizing and asking him to blurr your name and address.

Wait, scratch that. I just found your blog post shamelessly plugging your gold guide. It's total bs. If you want to help people, why does it cost money? Why don't you just distribute it for free to anyone who wants it? Or charge $5-10 to give a blogger rights to vendor it?

About the email thingie:1) It's no "obligation" of gevlon to do anything with that picture as long as it is true and not fabricated.2) SEriously, you think threatening with "i will sue you" will help? If you really-really need it to be down, just ask for forgiveness and understanding and that's the only way it would work.

I agree with many here... Naming and shaming someone in game is far different than in real life. I would seriously consider at least blurring out the e-mail address. He may have legal recourse against you :(

In any event, I think the whole thing is a bunch of drama, from BOTH parties. This is one time when I disagree with Larisa - its not integrity that I see with this post.

I wasnt privy to the entire conversation, only your side of it. So I have no idea if you simply declined or, as marcko claims, went off on an angry tirade. But based on your previous posts, I can guess that you did say something that probably grated on him. Goblins dont shy on saying harsh words.

This makes me remember one particular post over at Tobold's where he claimed to be the greedy goblin, and the point of it all was that conflict and drama as well as controversial topics create audience and rating like nothing else.

So yea, GreedyGoblin is the local tabloid of wow-gold-making while over at JM2C you can tune in to the teleshopping channel, selling you the useless crap you can get for free. (frankly between the 2 I prefer a tabloid tbh)

@Marko

lol noob, way to go sending e-mails to one Gevlon@smth.hu from your work address... PWNT

As for the selling gold guides is or isnt the goblin way...My point in this is, gevlon states at the start of the blog that he will publicly post all the tips he has for free, and I believe this gives him much more credibility than the next guy who shows some tips for free to get attention and then pops an "insert coin to see more" message...

Frankly, I do agree that he could have easily plugged gold guides a while back if that was his intent, but as you all can clearly see he is passionate about his blog and his philosophy this is what makes it genuine.

To me, "goblin" does not mean a power-hungry, money hungry mercenary... Shark is a better word for that. Gevlon's goblin is (as he is trying to describe it) the Rational New Man making and following his own path into society without succumbing to peer pressure and becoming a slave to it.

Is anyone else interested in the fact that Gevlon said no because he is concerned with what people will think of him? Why does he not want post an ad? People will think he "sold out" or something like that.

In addition, if you wanted a well reasoned response from Marko why did you spit out this flippant remark? "If I wanted to make "$500-$1000", I would just do some Saturday overtime in my job instead of risking being caught writing an advertisement post."

This is the kind of response I would expect from a 13 year old boy. I have more money than you do so :-p

it comes off childish and insulting, it's no wonder he lost it a bit and sent you a more virulent response. You could have said "I do not think that an add of this nature would be a good fit for my site. Thank you, but no." and I bet it would have ended there. Instead you provoked him for no good reason.

Honestly I question your motives here. It seems that you used this as an opportunity to make a scene. You have become so focused on this whole "socials" thing that you seem to have lost sight what most of us came here to read about, being a goblin in WOW. It's your Blog, do what you want, but posts like this feel cheap.

Gevlon did, in fact, say no because he's worried about what his readers will think of him, but that's because he wants them to listen to he has to say. He is trying to TEACH something with this blog, so he needs people to think he is worth listening to, instead of just a sell-out to ads.

He did NOT say no because he was worried that people wouldn't like him if he said yes; recall that his definition of "social" involves worrying about making people like you.

He says right there in his post:

"Most of my readers are not idiots and lot of them don't like me at all, they come here to bitterly argue and troll. They would love to catch me doing something like that. And on such catch there would my whole site go down, as they could easily claim that "he just speaks nonsense on purpose to increase traffic to his ads"."

"This makes me remember one particular post over at Tobold's where he claimed to be the greedy goblin"

I wouldn't be surprised. I didn't think Markco would be dumb enough to threaten a lawsuit or anything that's flying around. Only time will tell.I never did like the leveling guide, but i ignored it so i could talk on the JMTC forums. I've been visiting the actual site less and less though. It's a sad fact of the internet that the ads are all over the place.

Now I'm torn; JMTC at least took a stab at what was going to go up or down before various patches hit. On the other hand, the Goblin stopped giving specific, actionable financial advice a long time ago (although he is entertaining as hell).

The Goblin's contribution is mostly philosophical, not financial.

Anyway, a year into Wrath I pretty much know what goes up & down myself, but it was nice being able to double-check my thoughts and ideas. The EJ thread will have to suffice for now. Bye JMTC. (Tobold corroborates the story on his blog.)

Anyway, I did listen to Marcko's interview on some podcast, and he seemed sensible and reasonable enough. Guess not.

*My favorite part: where he threatens to sue the Goblin who apparently lives in Hungary. Good luck on that front.

I wrote this on the JTMC forums, but I'm afraid it might be deleted. If you want to find it, go there to the "off topic" section under the thread "Marko got owned." I'm not linking because I don't think it's appropriate:

"After reading Gevlon's post, as well as Tobold's (http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2009/11/do- ... uides.html), I think it is definitely Marko who comes off worse for wear. I read JMTC and Greedy Goblin every day, I listen to the How I WoW podcast with Marko, and I'm generally a supporter of both.

Unfortunately, Marko, you come across as underhanded and something of a bully. You've never disguised your sale of a gold guide, and good on you for being an entrepreneur. But if Gevlon's blog is accurate, then the way you approached him makes it seem like you have been completely dishonest in describing how and why you started JMTC. You went on How I WoW and made it sound like the gold guide is simply a hobby, a convenience for people that don't have the time to scour this website. Now, lo and behold, you're trying to muscle Gevlon into fleecing people for your guide (and, btw, the $5 to get rid of ads on this site doesn't make you look any less of a snakeoil salesman).

You seem like a nice enough guy, I'm glad you've got a great job and are losing weight, but those e-mails are sleazy. Poor form on your part, and I am sorry to say so.

Edit: Also, to say that Gevlon doesn't provide any economic advice of value is, imho, inaccurate. At the best he provides detailed, useful information, Ie: his glyph industry posts (http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... ustry.html). At worst, he's entertaining, albeit longwinded and maybe a little right of Ayn Rand. Politics aside though, Gevlon deserves more credit than he has been given thus far in this thread. I mean, even Marko called him the Master.

Also, I'm fully aware that this could be an elaborate advertisement on one or both of their parts. If so, it's exceptionally well done, and I'll surrender any moral highground very quickly."

A lot of people are "why did you not take the deal, it is very goblinish"?

Goblinish is doing what you WANT to do.

BTW: here is Marcos deleted post from his site:"Greedy Goblin and Confidentialityfrom Just My Two Copper - A World of Warcraft Economic Blog by MarkcoGreedy Goblin 'Pwns' JMTC

Awesome, a publicity nightmare has hit JMTC. That email you are looking at is an angered response by me after he childishly told me to get lost when I was honestly trying to help him out. I'm not peddling some shitty guide in backwater blogland, I'm actually selling the BEST guide online. That's right, it is by far the best one around, and I have had professional marketing gurus tell me that. I'm doing this to help people, and I tried helping the greedy blogger.

What does he do, he spins my words and turns it around on me. I told him if he said no I'd leave him alone, but he didn't say no, he instead wrote a childish response that flew in the face of what I was explaining to him. He also left out half the email which explained what I was talking about and 'softened' what I was saying.

Will I fight back against this low life twat? Nope. This blog is an amazing resource for players, I won't destroy it with posts discussing the blogger who makes personal attacks on me. I'm the bigger man. Moron of the week? I laugh my way to the bank and while he makes snide attacks to boost his ego, I give people gold guides worth far more than what I charge and provide the community with a free forum and blog. What has he done for the wow community besides brag in every post and boost his ego?"

Personally I will continue to read his forums. There are a lot of good (free)ideas there for making money posted by other members.

I see my prediction of a bbitchslapfest has materialised. Ah well - people are predictable, even Gevlon.

One thing I hadnt realised before was that Gev is based in the old eastern Bloc, which for me explains his RightWing tendencies. The sad thign for me is that so many posters on here have fallen for his schtick and pseudo ramblings. It is for suck simplemindedness that LePen and Griffin are gaining in support.

Markco was a fool for targetting Gevlon with this advertising but live and learn. Ultimately Markco has doen much more for the gold making community than Gevlon ever has and will continue to do so. And whatever peopel are saying here - if you dont want to buy the guide don't buy it - simple as that - no one is forcing you to.

Finally, someone exposes Markco for what he is. Like yesterday's garbage here he is back to his tricks of using others information to profit on. Good luck with that, I say.

I came across him on a blog I subscribe to that is very credible. At first I thought Marko was too and then as things began to unfold I began to think, he is just this side of shady, but wasn’t really sure.

I used to be a member of his forum until one day, out of the blue, he closed the search feature and made the most recent comments link un-clickable unless we all ponied up some money to use them. I do freelance writing as a hobby and went, huh? Someone’s making money without permission to use my work.

It was astounding that the folks who had contributed so much time, energy, ideas, and articles did just that. A lot of them paid five bucks so they could have access to their own information while he made money off of their hard work. It would not be surprising to learn that he is using the information he gathers on his blog comments and forums to make money with the gold-making guides he sells as well.

When I tried to explain that taking other person's intellectual property (the forum posts we could no longer see unless we paid to) and profiting by it was wrong-headed and definitely illegal because of copyright, he called me "hateful and lazy". Then he proceeded to garner sympathy by whinging about how expensive it was to pay for the bandwidth to run the forum. Several others encouraged him to put up a tip jar or donation link to defray his costs. I left his forums, unsubscribed from his blogs and removed him from my twitter.

This email here just proved to me that he tells lies to make his money. Now I have proof that he has absolutely no credibility as a businessman. He lies and he steals other people’s hard research to make money. He's nothing more than the latest version of a gold seller to me.

Have to admit I do read JMTC too but Greedy Goblin is by far my favourite.

His "tactics" are totally out of order:

"Create a post about gold guides and how you hate them... then at the very end start talking about my gold guide and use my blog as credibility... you can mention this guide is the only one you will even consider tolerating."

We come here to read Gevlon's views and tips and tricks.

I have no problem with Gevlon putting some ads on his site if he so wishes. I am here for the content.

However, as a (new) blogger myself I wouldn't jeopardise my hard work in building a readership only to post, effectively, a load of bull**** to make a "quick-buck".

Personally, and I'm sure other bloggers will agree, I would be quite happy to recommend or advertise any resources I thought worthwhile, credible and of interst and value to my readers.

Oh btw I just noticed this showed up in my feedreader 2 hours ago(but when I click on the link it has been removed).

"Awesome, a publicity nightmare has hit JMTC. That email you are looking at is an angered response by me after he childishly told me to get lost when I was honestly trying to help him out. I'm not peddling some shitty guide in backwater blogland, I'm actually selling the BEST guide online. That's right, it is by far the best one around, and I have had professional marketing gurus tell me that. I'm doing this to help people, and I tried helping the greedy blogger.

What does he do, he spins my words and turns it around on me. I told him if he said no I'd leave him alone, but he didn't say no, he instead wrote a childish response that flew in the face of what I was explaining to him. He also left out half the email which explained what I was talking about and 'softened' what I was saying.

Will I fight back against this low life twat? Nope. This blog is an amazing resource for players, I won't destroy it with posts discussing the blogger who makes personal attacks on me. I'm the bigger man. Moron of the week? I laugh my way to the bank and while he makes snide attacks to boost his ego, I give people gold guides worth far more than what I charge and provide the community with a free forum and blog. What has he done for the wow community besides brag in every post and boost his ego?"

Seriously, Gevlon is totally correct to turn down this offer. If he wants to monetize his blog at some point, in order to make serious capital he would need to grow it considerably first.

Even if the 30k / year is true (its not, think about it reasonably. Lets assume, the ENTIRE gold guide market is 3 million US anually, which i highly doubt, then that would give 1 advertiser 1% of the market. its insane). But lets assume 30k anually, which he could MAYBE keep up for a year, as plugging gold guides would make a bunch of readers leave, including me.

30k is nothing. If properly managed, and grown, he could retire on this blog one day.

I've readed too many time this:"paying for information which you can easily get for free at many places"

This is just plain stupid.You all (and I mean all the gurus on the 10-20 wow economic blogs out there) are allways talking about "opportunity cost"... have you tried thinking that you are not paying for free information BUT paying for the time you don't have to spend doing that research!?...Yes, I'm sure you have think about it. It's like saying "man, how can you buy donuts!?..when you can buy the reagents and cook them in your kitchen for a fraction of the price!!"...come on.

When I tried to explain that taking other person's intellectual property (the forum posts we could no longer see unless we paid to)

You can no longer see your messages? Or you can no longer search by keyword? Are you saying there are hidden topics? I am not subscribed and I read that forum everyday- Are you saying I dont see some of it? Or is it you just cant search by key word or author? That is two very differnt things , probably a good idea to make sure your statements here are correct.

@old wow bastard "When you can make $500 - $1000 with some weekend overtime at work, its not BRAGGING to tell someone so.

It's fact."

We have no way of knowing this is a fact. In addition his response is still flippant and rude. If I ask you "would you like to buy an apple?" and your response is "pfff I have 100 apples at home.", how I am I to know that is true and whether you want an apple or not. A simple "no" is just as effective and is not a directly provoking response.

I am just trying to point out that Gevlons response is meant to provoke a reaction, not to answer the question.

His big 600% profit item is to sell wool on the horde side you get from the alliance AH. I asked someone who bought the guide about it. His words a complete waste of money for anyone who who isn't a complete tard.

Seems to me most of the commenters here don't truly understand "Goblins".

Gevelon was playing by the rules that Markco put forth. Markco, not Gevlon, brought this from the fantasy world to the real world when he:A) used his work email account to send the message.B) asked you and me for our real money for his crap.

Gevlon is anti-social, a goblin. He, as any anti-social would, doesn't care what the ramifications for Markco are. Markco put himself in this position, Gevlon is just bringing it to light.

It doesn't matter what blog you read, Tobold's, Larrisa's, Gevlon's or many many others. If you are reading this, you read a blog and therefore are the exact people that Markco is targeting with this campaign. All Gevlon did with this post was protect his readers, which in turn protected his blog.

You see, he doesn't care what happens to Markco, whether he loses his job or gets his blog shut down. Gevlon's goal is to keep his blog running smoothing and teaching the Goblin way.

On a side note, to those who say Markco gives good gold tips and Gelvon gives nothing, you miss the point of this site. When Markco gives a gold tip, it's obsolete in a matter of days because he has high readship. Gevlon's tips last a lifetime because they teach you how to think.

I have learned much from Gevlon and have a profitable enough business using Jewlcrafting (not inscription) to keep up with repair bills, enchants and gems,and consumables for raiding.

I play WOW to raid, I don't spend my gold on bikes and flying mount because I don't find it fun. I want to raid and defeat end game content. Gevlon has taught me to make the gold I need to support this without having to farm or do dailies and for that I /thank you Gevlon.

"I am just trying to point out that Gevlons response is meant to provoke a reaction, not to answer the question."

Again, I'd have to disagree.

A majority of the people I work with can, make $500 a day doing weekend work. There is no shortage of this work available to us.

I have been asked to do a number of different things for money, outside of work. Pertaining both to work and my personal interests (music being a good example.)

I almost unanimously turn them down. If I need more money, I'll put in OT, if I do not, I will spend my free time relaxing.

When I read his comment I thought that it made sense, I and others I know have said similar things to similarly unsavory people. If you make enough money to feel comfortable, and have any sort of strong internal value system, its insulting when idiots attempt to bribe you.

Personally I don't see the statement as intentionally being caustic. Outside of it declaring "you are retarded for trying to buy me, I can't be bought", which could be interpreted as being caustic, albeit in a roundabout way.

I would agree that specifically stating a figure could be interpreted as a provocative reaction; in this case however the interpretation is really the domain of the interpreter.

Specifically, everyone will read it their own way, and we both see a different meaning and intent behind those words.

I fail to see your point, as I fail to see any lies. Gevlon's post cited emails you have written and interpretations of them. Where exactly is the lie? Did you or did you not write those emails? If you did, what part is a lie exactly?

The pitch was pure and epic fail from your part, and your reaction now is an insult to the reader's intelligence here.

This is not a gold making blog. It maybe was, but these days it is more or less a philosophical outlet for Gevlon. I for my part read it because I find it entertaining and thought provoking. That you think you have more merit in the community because you have "done more" for it, is completely irrelevant here. This is about the food for thought, not stupid farming tips. If you had read this blog in the last months, you would have noticed and decided that using it as a marketing opportunity was amazingly stupid. But hey, "You gotta try", right? "No harm in asking", right?

Stupid, stupid, stupid. And nice to see you are a whiner as well. Who would have guessed. GTFO.

The only rules Gelvon plays by are his. But , thank you for your post. You made me think a little harder about the blog. Gevlon didnt have to post any personal information, the name of the gold guide would have been enough to figure out who it was. He is just being an ass, plain and simple. He doesnt care of the real life issues he could cause?. Probably not. but I have to deal with enough of these type of people in the real world, why waste another minute on a cyber bully. He has become what he was accusing Marko of but on a much grander scale. Just makes him a bigger jerk. Dont bother to tell me good riddance, I will never read it.

"In celibration of the one year anniversary of the blog I've dropped my gold guide's price down to $27 for the holiday season as well as added an amazing update with a niche market I discovered that provides an average of 600% profit on investment depending on server prices (based on testing on a dozen live servers). The item involved will blow your mind because I gaurantee you weren't expecting it to be this valuable. Besides this sweet method, I've also upgraded the guide to include several walkthroughs for key addons that will make your life so much easier in world of warcraft. Guides for professions have been updated as well with a few minor specific methods."

No, 80% of the readers here won't enjoy your free post anymore. The "information" you give in your forums isnt what most readers of this blog are interested in, else they would have long ago switched to stupid sites like yours completely. Now that Gevlon deleted links to your blog, the number of people . Nice move, you actually shot yourself in the foot multiple times. And now you just keep on demonstrating your distorted reality by accusing Gevlon of "Lies" and readers of "Not digesting all information" when the main point still stands: You made an incredibly stupid sales pitch (all of Gevlon's main points stand). Also, you are still pathetically whiney.

In the age of the internet, good marketers have learned that "Oh I made a mistake there, sorry" is much more effective than your whining. You don't have to actually mean it, it is just smarter. But hey, smart clearly isnt your game.

I am not "poking fun" at you, I sincerely do not like you and your attitude, and I would really appreciate it if you could GTFO now. Do you need it spelled out as your brain capacity seems a bit limited?

I certainly did not have any trouble understanding. Gevlon's "Risk being caught" refers to the statements he's made on this blog that he would not advertise, and to the proposal you originally offered which certainly sounded like you expected a pro-forma recommendation from him.

If you want an honest review you don't say things like "you could trash other blogs but recommend mine and make $500+ in the first day easy". You say things like "I hope you will consider looking through my guide, and if you agree it is good, recommending it to your readers."

That's why you sound sleazy to me.

And I can't see what Gevlon has done to wrong you unless you did not in fact send these emails or he has misquoted, or by stripping context misrepresented what you said.

You've been asked whether any of these is the case, it's looking like they are not.

You wonder why Gevlon and Tobold thought it was a "risk" to advertise your guide on their sites, and yet the reaction you see now, if it actually hurts you, is answer enough isn't it? Your reputation is greatly diminished just from people seeing the emails you send to authors of popular wow blogs.

You see Markco, either you or Gevlon are not saying the truth. If it was only about advertising or adding a link I wouldn't give a damn. But according to Gevlon you suggested bashing all other gold guides while praising yours. As a regular post. That's really low.

Markco, why won't you just say sorry? I'll be blunt. I've never even looked at your site until today. So my opinion of you is currently based on the emails put forth by Gevlon.

I don't care if you want to sell gold guides. If you can make some money and still put forth good content, then good for you.

The personal insults were actually the nail in the coffin for me. The fact that instead of apologizing, you choose to ridicule Tobold(who really had nothing to do with your personal information being available) and Gevlon is what pushed me away.

To be honest, I would have gleaned useful information from your site despite this being what brought me there. It would have even increased your all important hit count. It's due to your poor handling of the situation that Gevlon and Tobold will continue to get visits from me daily.

Since visitors are important to you, why don't you write a blog post detailing your traffic starting today and continuing for the next week or two. Also include Tobold and Gevlons traffic in the graph if possible.

I look forward to this post, but I'll be surprised if you actually make it.

Personally, I could find a million better ways to make $1000 over the weekend rather then sitting down and trying to lure ppl into an online marketing scheme. I'd rather be selling myself for street corner prostitution on a Saturday afternoon.

I've read the emails you sent Gevlon. I read the post you put up *on your own site* and then tried to hide by removing it. I read Tobold's account of what happened to him.

All of them point in the same direction. You aren't being honest and you're trying to persuade other, more reputable, bloggers to mislead their readers in return for money. When you're caught, you attempt to tarnish their reputation rather than admit to having done wrong. And you're using your company email address to do it. Good luck explaining that one to the boss.

P.S.

Are you by any chance related to the Chris Antoni who is quoted here. That young man had some wise advice about how your reputation can be tarnished by posting foolish things online. You may wish to read it.

This whole drama seems overblown to me. Advertising and sales are sleezy business and it surprises me to see so many people in this community so shocked by Markco's behavior.

Personally, I am disappointed in the way that both Gevlin and Markco have handled themselves through this drama - but I'm fine with it because I never read either of their blogs for information on how to be decent.

It also surprises me to see so many people blast the practice of purchasing gold guides. We each spend alot of time in game to make gold - any information that could improve our efficiency in that has a real world monetary value, and it wouldn't require much of that information to justify the cost of a typical gold guide.

I have bought several guides about world of warcraft and stay current with many blogs abd forums. I see little difference between paying a few dollars for the opportunity to pickup a tip or two versus paying a few minutes for the same opportunity. I am surprised that "goblins" would fail to see things this way.

You may have conveniently changed your strategy in the follow-up e-mails, but that doesn't change the fact that you initially said:

"Create a post about gold guides and how you hate them. Give examples of guides and then at the very end start talking about my gold guide and use my blog as credibility for the guide. Perhaps you can mention that this guide is the only one you will even consider tolerating."

You didn't ask Gevlon what he thought about your guide vs. other guides, or if he might be willing to look over your guide and consider writing about it. You specifically said Gevlon should give examples of guides he hates, then praise yours.

There was no grey area there, you left no room for the possibility that Gevlon might be capable of forming his own opinions - instead your pitch is to try and get someone else to just be the voice for how you WISH things were in reality. That everyone else sucked and you were best.

I'm sure every other company with a product to sell would love to use your tactic if it worked. Sites like Gevlon's are about learning to be efficient and effective when it comes to your time invested in the WoW Economy. The thought that he might not want to advertise gold guides because that's what he tries to steer people away from resorting to never crossed your mind?

What if McDonalds approached the community of weight loss bloggers and asked them to write about how fast food is bad, especially places like Burger King and KFC, but then throw out there that McDonalds is okay? They would resist, because a lot of them are against unhealthy fast food.

Their readers would cry foul and want to know why someone who blogs about tatics and strategies to lose weight and get in better shape would advocate eating at McDonald's.

"Leave a link to the 20kleveling.com site with your clickbank hoplink encrypted inside of it."

I really hate gold selling guides too personally, they wont teach you anything you can't learn for free. I hate the way his website tries to really over-sell it, and I hate the way he seems to try to even over-sell the opportunity to Gevlon. It sucks that he probably does make some money off of it.

You know, public records are a bitch. Seeing as how the registrant of 20kleveling.com is Christopher Antoni, with an address of 106 White Pine Drive, Bridgeport PA (again, this is public WHOIS record information). Markco here claims to make a ton of money, plus all of his affiliate marketing programs...so you'd think the guy must be a bit of a baller for a 24 year old.

Montgomery County public records show that 106 White Pine Drive is owned by Erwin & Mary Antoni. Some quick internet research shows Erwin was born in 1956 and Mary in 1955. If Markco is 24, these would appear to be his parents.

Yep, such a baller, bragging about all his money, and he lives with mommy and daddy.

Gevlon, if you really want to be anti-social about this, you should fwd Markco's email to "postmaster@lmco.com" (or administrator, webmaster, etc) and complain about receiving such shady offers coming from their company. I'm pretty sure Lockheed would be very upset to see their network resources used in that manner.

Why do so many people feel that releasing an e-mail address is a personal attack? That's absolutely ludicrous, if you send correspondence to someone and they decide to post it on their blog, oh well.

That's what the free accounts that you get from your webhost, or gmail, or hotmail or whatever are for. Just because someone is stupid enough to conduct their personal online marketing business through their employers e-mail that isn't Gevlon's fault.

The people who believe Markco has been "personally attacked" are the ones who are are buying into his crying fit he's throwing in comments here and on tobolds site now that he's been called out for his shady advertising tactics.

This musing over Marcko's personal details is very much against the spirit of Gevlon's blog. Gevlon has always said it shouldn't matter who he is or what he does, but that his words should speak for themselves.

Gevlon probably shouldn't have put the actual email address. But it didn't figure into any of his arguments. If you respect anything that he has to say here, then all this trolling for Markco's "real" financial status should really just stop.

Long time reader of both blogs. In my humble opinion, in the beginning both had some useful information to people starting making gold on wow. Markco built a forum were this can be discussed in a more advanced way by the users. Gevlon's just became a daily reading for me, not because of the gold tips but more because of the philosophical posts. Lets face it currently any tip that goes in any wow gold blog will be obsolete in a couple of hours.Even EJ has a forum post on wow gold making.@ Markco Can't you see that 90%(fictional number) of the people reading this blog either has enough gold already or they don't care about it. Would you advertise you gold making guide on a pink panther fan club blog? No. Then why would you want to do it here? Anyway as someone already stated you could have gone for a different path, you choose your path poorly, time to move on. Rise and repeat.On a side note - why in hell you used you professional email address? Anyway bottom line i couldn't care less if you sell a gold making guide or not. Just wanted to tell you that thou your forum has it's usefulness i feel that your blog has become less and less useful either because the content is more of the same or because people evolve and some of the "new" topic are just a bit grey on the brightness scale.Finally i want to tank both for what you have done so far for the community.

Now me? I like a good trainwreck. My favorite part are all the people saying 'blur his personal info'...

WTF? How is Gevlon a) doing anything underhanded by posting it and b) why should he care? Do you READ the guys blog? You're trying to appeal to Gevlons better side? hahahaha. First rule of the internet - you have no control once you hit 'send'. Don't email anything you can't live with later.

I'd get my ass handed to me if I used my work address for anything like this - I have no sympathy for Markco being stupid. I fully agree with the people who point out that few (if any) people that regularly read Gevlon's blog even NEED gold anymore, let alone buying a guide.

Wow, he used his work email address for this? Takes what, 3min to create an email account on the web...

GG Gevlon, I stopped reading that blog when he started plugging his gold guide/online dating and charged users for *premium* forum content. I had long suspected that some of his *tips* were attempts at market manipulation anyway.

*Quote*You know, public records are a bitch. Seeing as how the registrant of 20kleveling.com is Christopher Antoni, with an address of 106 White Pine Drive, Bridgeport PA (again, this is public WHOIS record information). Markco here claims to make a ton of money, plus all of his affiliate marketing programs...so you'd think the guy must be a bit of a baller for a 24 year old.

Montgomery County public records show that 106 White Pine Drive is owned by Erwin & Mary Antoni. Some quick internet research shows Erwin was born in 1956 and Mary in 1955. If Markco is 24, these would appear to be his parents.*/quote*

*quote*About the Lockheed part. Funny thing, I happened to notice that Christopher Antoni seems to be an Alumni from DeSales University in PA (class of 2008)

http://www.desales.edu/default.aspx?pageid=2183

And looking down that list a bit to 2003 there's a Lexy Antoni who also apparently works for Lockheed.

According to her Linkedin profile, she works in Program Operations for Lockheed, and originally started working there in August 2003.

Guess Chris didn't need to know much to get a job at Lockheed, he just needed his big sister (cousin perhaps?) to put in a good word for him.*/quote*

This whole subject fills me with sadness because it reminds me of how many people have spent their money on these gold guides. Why do I care? Because I am a Jedi, just like my father. That money would be so much better spent on a real product, created by hard work, instead of by bullshit.

Am I the only one who isn't the least bit surprised? Markco hosts a good web forum, but I stopped reading his blog months ago precisely because I saw him for what he was - a huckster for paid privileged information that doesn't offer anything significant beyond what you can read online. Come on! A guy who runs a blog about making money off other players... did his readers honestly never suspect that he was in it for himself? You could see this in how Markco constantly complained about other blogs not giving him credit for strategies that aren't exactly hard to figure out.

By the way, I don't like this blog very much either, but this is one move on Gevlon's part that I completely support (although revealing real names and e-mail addresses is a grey area). At least Gevlon doesn't even pretend to be a philanthropist.

* Markco tried to be a jerk and failed. Trying to get others to badmouth your competition is bad. After this show he will either become more honest and upfront or he will learn to better hide his tracks.

* Gevlon is a jerk. After this show he will be on constant lookout for more incriminating material like real-world email addresses in his inbox and otherwise as dramas bring a heck of a lot of traffic. This blog will definitely see more expositions, perhaps integrated into the weekly column.

* If you are interested in making gold, go to JMTC forums. If you are interested in dramas, come to this site.

For the record, I have a soft spot for dramas. :-) Go, Gevlon. I have an entire bank tab full of popcorn.

@GothNo, my eyes are not closed. Anyone with any common sense at all would realise that spending money on a gold guide is a complete waste of time.1)All you are getting for your money is the time spent in searching for the information. Regardless of whether you found it yourself or whether you paid for it, you still have to spend the same amount of time reading it.2) Any hard copy material is going to be out of date by the time you get it. General strategies will still work, but item specific strategies will possibly (probably)be useless by the time the guide arrives on your doorstep.3) A guide like this gives a single viewpoint with no discussion or comment.

It is not designed to "help" people. It is designed purely for the author to make money from. In general the people who buy it will read it, follow the advice for a day and then be too lazy to follow it further.Markco has correctly identified a market segment that is too lazy to work it out for themselves and too lazy to actually use what is in his book. Where he has gone wrong is in repeatedly trying to get others to advertise his book for him, even after they have said no. He is a pushy salesman, or as someone else put it, a snake oil salesman and as such should be regarded in the same class as slimy polititians, sensationalist dirt digging repoters and ambulance chasing lawyers.

Anyone who cannot make the observations I have quite honestly deserves to be fleeced by Markco.

Perhaps theres one little social trick that people are missing that has came back and bit marko in the ass. Him sending the email from his works email address. More than that a lockhead email address.

Perhaps this wasnt a bad mistake or serious lapse on marko's judgement. Perhaps it was andother socail trick, part of the well thought out marketing email. It says "look, The sender works for an internationaly recognised company, he's successful already, if he's involved in this it must be profitable".Now marko's greatest concearn / objection to all this has been the publishing of this email address. Why? Not because it give his ID away, anyone with a keyboard and whois can get that, and not because he sent it using his works email facilites. Thats a slap on the wrist type offence for a first offender if he's caught most times.No. He's potentially done something REALLY misguided. He's associated the name of the company he works for, with what MAY be considered by them to be a "shadey" or not above board business venture. Deliberately misleading the public (thats us) with fake reviews with the intention to sell goods to us, could PERHAPS be seen as bringing the name of lockhead into disrepute, which in most employment contracts is an automatically dismissable offence.Now, this all depends on lockheads internal interpretation of the affair, if they are even made aware of it. But peopel have been sacked for far less in the past.

@matFunny, the guide has helped me loads. I've been following the advice for months, and of course the guide is being updated with patches and so on.Which greatly helps me.

Yes, I did not have to buy the guide. You are not forced to buy anything, and for those that buy it? What does that matter to those that don't want to spend money on guides like these?

You post is invalid, as you have no idea what this guide even consist of. Do you even know its an online guide which gets updated regularly?Which also means you don't have to wait till it arrives at your doorstep?

Tell me this. What is the point of buying a novel book then? or a music album even? All this material would also become useless then after reading the book or listening to the album countless times.If you enjoy using this material again in the future, for interest sake, same applies to this guide.We are all different. Don't judge people like that

I also don't agree with the way he tried to advertise his guide. Good salesman or not, we not all perfect!

Haha, my mistake. Assumption is the mother of all fuckups.Because I prefer hardcopy books and because I have a relatiovely large library of my own, I assumed that it was a hardcopy book. I have never looked past the link to it on JMTC as I have never been interested in buying it, prefering to find my own solutions.

I guess I don't see a conflict. I like Markco who pretty much always has wow econ related posts, and has a wonderful forum set up. This is far different from Gev's blog. I also don't see the problem of trying to earn money by telling people ways to work the game a little better. Most of his gold tips are directly in his blog after all. I mean, the true goblin is one who earns cold hard cash for playing WoW. Gevlon has every right to refuse gold sellers a place here, but to me money is money. I wouldn't turn it down. Its not like Marcko has a horde of chinese players hacking accounts and vendoring all their items. That is immoral. What Markco does is completely fine in the spirit of the game.

@TonusBecause there is a difference in real life "ID" and online "ID" if you can call it that.

If someone made a poor sales attempt via WoW blogs, wtf does that have to do with his real life name, email, location, family names etc. huh?

If you cannot see the difference then you need to open up your mind and think for a second!

Bad sales attempt or not, I do not believe Marco's deserves what you guys are throwing at him now. You guys have proven you point that its not your way of doing sales pitches. Stop it there don't take it further.Think ahead for a second.

Its amazing how some humans just don't care about certain sensitive information about others.

I've watched this unfold as someone who has met Marcko in real life and talked with him over Skype for a while for my podcast How I WoW.

I like Marcko and my interactions with him have been pleasant. But these emails and his responses here and on Tobold's blog have not been flattering and/or professional.

That being said, Gevlon sunk even lower by publishing Marcko's real life name and email. Revealing this information doesn't contribute to Gevlon's argument, teach a lesson to his readers, or make his point stronger. It is just being mean.

I doubt the majority of readers here care whether Gevlon is mean and or is intentionally trying to hurt people, but for those who do, the best way to protest is to stop reading.

@BulbasaurTell me, wtf does his personal information have to do with anything? Huh?

You think his family at risk deserves this?

If you had/have a child, and u mess up on a bloody sales pitch. And people come after your kid, you think thats fair?Bash his sales pitch if u want to, but his personal information has nothing to do with and online blog PRIVATE sales pitch conversation.

With one simple copy/paste, Gevlon brutally slaughtered a competitor. For negative work (i.e. not taking the time to blur out the guy's real name) he took down one of his competition while spiking his own traffic. This is perfectly in line with his philosophy on this site.

He also taught Markco a lesson he won't soon forget, turning Markco into a better goblin in the end.

Even if no administrative action was taken against Markco for this at Lockheed, if management finds out about it it's a black mark, which will have impacts on yearly raises. Compromising professional rep for some shitty side business is M&S style.

Also, for the guy that said working at Lockheed means someone is successful... depending on where you live, Lockheed will hire random idiots off the street for shit pay. Working for Lockheed and pulling $100K in your 20s is successful. Working at Lockheed as one of their faceless scrubs (as I would assume Markco is since a successful person doesn't try to make chump change on the side from WoW gold guides while risking his professional reputation) making shit pay with 5% raises and no real advancement is how Lockheed makes their money.

"If someone made a poor sales attempt via WoW blogs, wtf does that have to do with his real life name, email, location, family names etc. huh?"

"Real professional salesmen in the real professional world do INDEED call upon targeted clients repeatedly until they find some common ground."

You both are misunderstanding my point. The initial attempts at contacting Gevlon are one thing. And at the end of the email that Gevlon posted, Markco adds a PS to the effect that he would not bother him anymore if he did not want to take advantage of the offer.

Yet when Gevlon said no, he got a rude, aggressive and self-aggrandizing email in reply. He raised the stakes unnecessarily and turned a sales call into a war. I don't see why he deserves the courtesy of not having his email address posted publicly when he showed no courtesy of his own.

If you want to avoid such messy results, take the proper precautions. Such as not using a work-based email address to run your side business from, and not angering a person who dismissed your sales pitch. And just as useful-- don't have thin skin.

And you are right, I will never be a professional salesman. I already have a good career. I do deal with salesmen all the time as part of my job, and while they are persistent in trying to get my business (as I would expect) they don't act like condescending know-it-alls when I don't buy their products or services. Because giving me shit for saying "no" is a sure guarantee that I'll never deal with you or your company again.

It seems there's a bunch of assclowns who don't understand how the internet works that want to whine about Markco's personal information coming out.

For the last time - ALL of the personal information in these comments with the exception of his work e-mail address can be obtained easily without any of the information Gevlon posted.

See, since Markco owns the domain 20kleveling.com all you need to do is go to any WHOIS domain lookup and check the domain.

http://www.whois.net/

Put 20kleveling in the box, and his name and address comes up. This is public record and has nothing to do with Gevlon, Tobold, or any other WoW blogger.

As for his parents names and information, after obtaining his home address from the domain registration it only takes about two minutes to look up what county he's in, visit the county website, and use their Recorder of Deeds public records search on the address.

I only posted the minimal information there that was valid to my argument. There's also all of the previous mortgage data on his parents home, etc...because those filings with the county are again, PUBLIC RECORD.

A lot of you seem to assume there is some given amount of privacy on the intarwebs. I don't understand it, and other people with knowledge of how much information is available to the public must get a laugh out of it too.

If you don't like Gevlon after all of this because of the way he handled his communication with Markco that's one thing. If you don't read Gevlons blog anymore because he published an e-mail thay was sent to him, or didn't delete comments containing nothing more than information ALREADY AVAILABLE AT OTHER WEBSITES you have a lot to learn about teh intarwebs.

as much respect for both markco and gevlon that i've lost through this ordeal, i do sure as hell hope nothing negative comes to christopher (the real kid, not markco) in his real life. not one hate mail, not one approach to his address or his parents, not one iota of negativity at his real place of employment. he screwed up regarding pixels and fake gold guides and a game. a game.

anyone who is surprised by either of their behaviors is naive. but for it to get to this point, where yes you *can* look things up about him, but doesn't mean you *should* post it all over here to include his parent's names and birthyears? draw the line and be the better person. we are not impressed with your googling skills and whois skills.

*quote*but for it to get to this point, where yes you *can* look things up about him, but doesn't mean you *should* post it all over here to include his parent's names and birthyears?*quote*

When someone wants to make inflated claims as to how much money they're bringing in with their gold guide, in addition to boasting about their salary at their day job, there's nothing wrong with looking up information that may seem to contradict that claim.

Sure, I could have just claimed he lived with mommy and daddy without facts to back it up, but that's not how I roll. There's too many people that will call BS unless you put all of the information out there. That's why there's birth years for the owners of the home he lives at, to establish the probability that based on knowing his age they are likely his parents.

Now, he could be making a lot of money and still living at home for all we know, and the argument could be pointless.

As for yourself HokieJayBee, I find it ironic that you would try to come to the defense of someone being personally bashed on for the way they've acted when you run a blog titled "Fire Bryan Stinespring", whose sole purpose is to bash on the offensive coordinator of a college football team and call for his firing.

I'm pretty surprised you said "i do sure as hell hope nothing negative comes to christopher...not one iota of negativity at his real place of employment."

So I take it that same sentiment doesn't apply to coach Stinespring? Or in his case you don't care if your blog causes negativity at his place of employment?

but, i have met bryan stinespring. i pay stinespring's salary. he's an indirect employee of mine. i grade his performance to be unsatisfactory. i would like him removed. all of that is still in the real world, real dollars.

gevlon, or you, do not pay christopher's salary at lockheed. nor have you met him or his parents. why do you care so much he said he makes good bank and bragged about his life? why? the real world punishment for a game/blog crime doesn't match here is all i'm saying. i'm not defending markco's actions regarding the e-mails or gold selling and have lost respect for him too. but the punishment, and possible real life implications for him and his family [who have nothing to do with this], does not match the "crime".

There's a lot more dirtier tactics in the real world. Just look at loans. TV ads that flash £10 on the screen for the duration to make you think sofa's are cheap. So why bother with this.

People know buying gold is stupid, people know buying gold guides is stupid. You don't need to point it out and if you wanted the respect of your readers you wouldn't of posted trash like this that's no better that shitty gossip magazines.

People read his free guide to learn how to make ingame gold, people read yours for the same reason. Like most people I'll take what I can get for free.

but, i have met bryan stinespring. i pay stinespring's salary. he's an indirect employee of mine. i grade his performance to be unsatisfactory. i would like him removed. all of that is still in the real world, real dollars.

I really hate to drag this on, but I suppose suspect this is a pretty grey area you're claiming here. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you claim to pay Stinespring's salary because you paid tuition to attend VT? Since you work as an engineer I doubt that a college football offensive coordinator is anymore of an "indirect employee" of yours than the guy who mows the grass at my apartments is an indirect employee of mine because I pay rent to live there.

As for your focus on all of that being "in the real world, real dollars", how is Markco selling a gold guide not in the real world, in real dollars? The guide costs $27 to buy, I can't mail him 50k in game gold and get a guide sent to me.

Markco's own affiliate page claims if you link to his guide and someone buys one a day through your link you could make $702 a month (though to be fair, you make 60% of his price and that was based on the guide being $39, so now you'd only make $486). Again, sounds like real world money to me.

Just because the actual content of the guide is about a video game economy, the sale of said guide is a real world business, and how that business is conducted has real world implications.

I actually like the way you've made your case HokieJayBee, and stood up to the criticism. However I feel like you're stretching the truth to claim your blog is about someone who you pay the salary for, while at the same time trying to categorize Markco's business into something only about pixels and a game when there's real world money involved.

Funny that this post actually still advertised the 20k leveling Guide.

Are you sure you didn't take his offer on a virus post and keep that info in there so people would go to his site anyways? Nice cover up with the bashing and all but even you aren't that good of a goblin I suppose.

Despite the massive number of responses, I just had to add my...uh...thoughts.

One of your recent morons o' the week was trying to assure that his wares weren't being bought to be resold. He naively wanted them sold to people who needed them "for a fair price" or some carebear sentiment.

How is that different from your moral high ground about wanting to provide "free" AH strategies and being outraged that someone wanted to make a buck (and share it with you) off of your skill and success?

I don't buy that it pissed you off that he wouldn't take no for an answer. You enjoy saying no. What's a few more times?

Markco was persistent. And he stretched the truth JUST like your moron's foil did by lying that he needed the goods for his guild. And you celebrated his Goblin-ness for that.

Seriously, in all this I'm seeing Markco as the Goblin and you unfortunately as the defender of the sugerplum fairie forest.

and since i have more funds than apparently even you (at last estimate), I'm going to buy that damn guide to make up my own mind.

"Second tip: Just because 98% of the people are socials who fall for tricks, it doesn't mean you should use the tricks indiscriminately. They don't work on goblins. They just get pissed, or see an opportunity to increase traffic by writing a debunking post (people love blood), using you as bad example and delete your link from their blog, denying you traffic."

While Markco's "sales pitch" may have been a bit questionable, and in spite of the fact that you label yourself an "antisocial", the line above gives you away.

Keep in mind other antisocials can see through your bullshit too. Your attempt to get more readers and make him lose more by bashing him is more likely to backfire with the truly smart readers. Antisocials don't care who is "right or wrong" in a situation, but if someone is outright being an ass just for the sake of being an ass, there is no reason to value their opinion whatsoever.

Not sure WHAT you are talking about with the "virus-ad" but it is ridiculous to suggest that an established voice/business/whatever you want to call it would send someone they consider their peer a virus, so I have to assume you just threw that word in as more chum in the water.

You dumbasses who think that this is counter to what Gevlon has written in his posts here just don't understand what he's posted here. Although I don't agree with Gevlon in terms of outlook and the true value of certain things, he is extremely honest in his postings and is highly consistent in applying his worldview.

Look up some of his posts on why he writes this blog and maybe you'll have an epiphany.

"I don't see why would anyone pay $20 for something he could get for free."

I don't see why would anyone pay for a wooden table when he can grab an axe, cut down a tree, get some woodcrafting skills and craft one...

Somehow your comment fails to prove your point.

As for your "integrity"...coming from someone who's always claimed, ever since day 1, that taking advantage of ignorants is the (goblin) way to go (ie : morons of the week section), I find it a bit hard to swallow.

Shifting the loss to a second party who is complicit in the deal is just underhanded. You need to be honest and add the losses made by your GF to the total of the system cost. I'm pretty sure anyone can "defeat" anyone with a farmer willing to bear the cost of losing gold so you can profit.

Ink of the sea, and vellums sell very slowly. So either you will have a massive glut of unprocessed herbs or inks or vellums. You cannot move the volume needed to "defeat" a goblin.

Supply and demand. If you force herb prices so low (god knows how this is possible in a market where you are most certainly not the only buyer) then the goblins will only need to offer slightly more than you to get herbs even cheaper than they did before. If you can, they can....oh I forgot this plan requires a GF.

Again if the farmers get paid ridiculous prices they will either farm less or sell to higher bidders. Unless of course you have enlisted retarded farmers to your cause, who farm for vendetta rather than profit.

Finally, screenshots, book keeping and some real numbers are needed. At the moment this is a "master plan" for fail.

TLDR: Becoming a "goblin" is not defeating one, Plan has unrealistic price requirements, Plan has unrealistic sales expectations, Plan requires a GF, Plan requires a second party willing to make a loss so you can profit, Plan defies economic laws, Plan needs real world proof.

I've been on both the sales and proposition side of business and I'll say that Markco handled himself a bit wrongly here, especially when he used THAT address (get your own domain you nunce!). but I've never seen such a disproportionate reaction from a blog's audience. This is worse than the frigging PuA blogosphere.